Welcome to DC. I can appreciate your questions about using CI pans, however, I have CI skillets my grandma used...I've had them for 40+ years. She had them for 60+ years before I got them. And other CI pans that I've had for 30+ years. One would think that by now I'd be experiencing side effects from using them. Not so. CI pans have been around a long time. I have no concerns about health issues (other than dropping one on my toe or burning my hand because I forget to use an oven mit). Of course, none of my CI pans were made in China...those I might have concerns about...

" Our bodies cannot easily break down this form of iron because it is a metal." Oh, yeah. As opposed to that other iron, the one that's not a metal? And...

"... like all minerals, has two forms – organic and inorganic. Both forms of iron have the same chemical composition (Fe)..."

Well, I suppose a single element is a "chemical composition." But someone should n't have spent chemistry class writing boys names on book covers. Iron, Fe, atomic number 26, is an element, a form indivisible without the application of forces not found in kitchens. But readily oxidized and so not naturally found in a pure state.

We also don't seem to have the slightest notion of what "organic" means. (Except knowing that it means the author wants to sound all natural and healthy.) Chemically, organic means a compound is formed combining carbon and other elements. The carbon makes it "organic." Or do we mean organic as in "organic matter," meaning something that was or is alive. Been watching too much transformers if you think iron was or is alive or is or was the product of a living organism. Or organic farming methods, which has nothing at all to do with iron or metals or pots and pans or even organic chemistry.

Oh, and it's strongly implied that cast iron is a hazard because inappropriately ingesting iron supplements is bad. Might as well claim that cast iron is bad because you could hit yourself over the head with a cast iron pan. (Although there are apparently some for whom that might be a workable therapy and certainly couldn't harm their thought processes.)

The subtitle of the article is "You May Want to Reconsider." Yep. You sure might want to do that. But what you may want to reconsider is reading ignorance pretending to knowledge and committed to writing solely to fill provide some web content. This just happens to be one of more sad examples of the genre.

__________________"Kitchen duty is awarded only to those of manifest excellence..." - The Master, Dogen

Do not drop it on your toe.
Do not piss off your SO to the point of making them want to conk you on the head.
Remember that metal on the stove gets hot and will burn you if you forget this fact and grab a hot pan without protection.

My grandparents used cast iron for almost everything. They lived into there late eighties. This is before the miracles of modern day medicine.

I have and use there cast iron cookware some of which is over 100 years old. I'm getting up there in years myself. I only hope I live as long as they did.

Perhaps using cast is a benefit rather then a detriment?

Steve, Not only will the sticks be deemed too sharp. The species of wood will have to be determined for which food it is being used to cook. Multiple tests will need to be preformed for each combination of wood type and food stuffs.

Cast iron pans have been cooked in for hundreds of years. If there was any increase in kidney or hardening of the arteries or gall stones, enough people have used them that some proof of it would have shown itself, just by the shear millions using them. It would have become well obvious by now.